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The Western Environmental Law Center represented the groups — Montana Environmental Information Center and Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians — who filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests last summer to obtain correspondence between federal officials regarding the drafting of this report.
They received documents from two bureaus within DOI, including one from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. However, they were redacted, Barbara Chillcott (a senior attorney at Western Environmental Law Center) told CNN.
Chillcott estimated that 75% of the information in the documents so far has been deleted.
Taylor McKinnon, senior public lands campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity, stated that “the climate crisis is a public problem; these are public agencies.” “We want communications, we want those drafts. We want people to be able understand why and when the administration has pulled back from its climate promise with federal oil and natural gas leasing.
Climate groups criticized the report as not doing enough to address climate changes.
Chillcott stated, “From our point of view, the report fell flat in terms meeting the needs to address the climate crisis and seemed unresponsive President Biden’s executive orders on tackling climate crisis.” It was a huge disappointment for us. When I think about that report, the word comprehensive is not what comes to mind.
An Interior Department spokesperson declined comment to the lawsuit.
The government has thirty days from the date of the complaint to respond. Chillcott expressed hope that environmental groups will prevail given that the US Attorney General Merrick Garland has recently issued new FOIA guidelines, urging agencies to be more transparent.
The lawsuit could still take several months.
Chillcott stated that “I honestly don’t know how long it will take.” “We do hope that this would act as a catalyst to agencies to respond, but the timeframe at this point is uncertain.”
This report was contributed by Liz Stark, CNN.
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